Small Business, Big Growth: How Investing in SMEs creates Jobs

This report aims to capture the key constraints that SMEs typically confront and provide a methodology better suited to measuring the job creation effects of SME finance initiatives by DFIs like IFC.

IN SUMMARY

This report examines the relationship between SME loan size and job creation.

Every $1 million loaned to SMEs in developing countries is associated with the creation of an average of 16.3 direct jobs created over two years.

Extrapolating from the model shows that lending activities by IFC’s clients was related to the creation of an estimated 4.7 million to 6.1 million jobs in 2018.